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Syracuse University professor, students and Kronos Quartet to try out noise maker (video)

Intonarumori

Syracuse University assistant professor Zeke Leonard stands behind one of his intonarumori instruments with students from the Setnor School of Music and department of transmedia and foundation. Four of Leonard's instruments will be demonstrated at 7 p.m. today at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, 310 Montgomery St., Syracuse.
(Photo courtesy of SU Arts Engage)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Plywood boxes will be carried into a sacred space for a noisy concert at 7 p.m. today at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, 310 Montgomery St., Syracuse. The star of the show is Syracuse University assistant professor Zeke Leonard's intonarumori, a noise-generating contraption he constructed in the classroom. The Kronos Quartet and SU music students will tryout and play four of Leonard's creations. The combination concert and demonstration is free and open to the public.

The intonarumori was an invention of Luigi Rossolo (1885-1947), an Italian futurist painter, composer and instrument maker. He composed music on his instrument and conducted full intonarumori orchestras in the 1900s. Original intonarumoris (Italian for noise intoners or noise makers) were destroyed in World War II, said Leonard. Typically, the noise makers are box-shaped with a lever, hand crank, wheel, string and some sort of amplification horn protruding from the box.

"The loveliest thing about these is you're going to sound bad because that's what they do," said Leonard, an assistant professor in the department of design at SU. "You don't have to worry about am I going to sound good or not."

While Leonard did the hands-on construction, he said music students got into the project. They suggested different ways to tinker with the intonarumori to change its sound. "They follow the preconceived notions I have and just shattered them."

Leonard had to rely on internet research and YouTube videos to figure out how to proceed. He discovered digitized patent drawings of the intonarumori. Leonard called it "educated guesswork" based on looking at photographs. "This was sort of a problem with looking at old Italian patent drawings. I don't read Italian," he said.

The professor made four intonarumoris, ranging in size from that of a cat carrier to a very small steamer trunk. Leonard said the size of the box determines the timbre of the instrument. He used walnut veneer plywood for the exterior and Baltic birch for the interior working parts.

"These things are so preposterous to a modern audience that it seems to me that it would be important that they look like quote instruments," said Leonard. "I wanted to make them look nice."

During the project, seven music students from SU's Setnor School were joined by students from Matthew Warne's experimental recording class who created audio of the construction and performance of the intonarumori.

Leonard said the recent completion of the intonarumori allowed time for few original compositions. One four-movement piece will be performed. Through amplification, one movement, "The Firefight," sounds as if canons are exploding on the battle front.
Leonard said he will be strictly an observer at the concert/demonstration.

The music-making project was a collaboration between SU Arts Engage, the Kronos Quartet in residency at SU this week and students in Setnor School of Music and the departments of design and transmedia and foundation.